On the morning of July 28, 1945 a B-25 bomber left Massachusetts and headed to New York City on a routine ferry mission. At the controls of the plane was Captain William F. Smith. Lost in the fog over Manhattan, Smith found himself flying among skyscrapers. A dictation machine in a nearby office happened to capture the sound of the plane as it flew by and hit the Empire State Building at the 79th floor. The pilot and his two passengers were killed, along with eleven workers in the offices of the Catholic War Relief Services. Debris from the plane severed the cables of an elevator, which fell 79 stories with a young woman inside. She survived. The crash prompted new legislation that — for the first time — gave citizens the right to sue the federal government.

Producers Joe Richman and Samara Freemark of Radio Diaries bring us an audio history of the day a plane flew into the Empire State Building.

On the morning of July 28, 1945 a B-25 bomber left Massachusetts and headed to New York City on a routine ferry mission. At the controls of the plane was Captain William F. Smith. Lost in the fog over Manhattan, Smith found himself flying among skyscrapers. A dictation machine in a nearby office happened to capture the sound of the plane as it flew by and hit the Empire State Building at the 79th floor. The pilot and his two passengers were killed, along with eleven workers in the offices of the Catholic War Relief Services. Debris from the plane severed the cables of an elevator, which fell 79 stories with a young woman inside. She survived. The crash prompted new legislation that — for the first time — gave citizens the right to sue the federal government.

Producers Joe Richman and Samara Freemark of Radio Diaries bring us an audio history of the day a plane flew into the Empire State Building.